Chapter 28: Mint's Promise
It was necessary that the research laboratories of the Tower of Maya be located high up in the building, for the Tower was designed so that the upper floors are 'detachable'. Due to serious technology limitations, only the upper floors can fly, and Valen needed to work in almost zero-G, far distant enough from the Earth's gravity well, for his latest mechatronic machines.
Belle had always thought that having a flying tower instead of using a mechavehicle was rather superfluous, but after working in the Tower of Maya, she came to realize that Valen had a point, although she suspected that it was Lucine who might actually have convinced him. Mechavehicle technology wasn't quite advanced enough to be able to carry the weight of an entire research facility such as Valen required, and since there was no need for fancy flying maneuvers that mechavehicles were famous for anyway, a floating building was plausible enough, and would actually be the most economical design. Lucine would have known.
Not for the first time, she wished her sister was there. When she came to Valen six years ago (or Valen recruited her, rather), Lucine was already severely affected by chroma poisoning and had to be isolated in one of the more remote compounds of Aeon Industries. Belle had then decided to tie herself with the company, since working for Valen seemed the best course of action if she wanted to keep track of her sister's condition. Besides, Valen paid her well.
Belle hadn't left the Tower in weeks, and she was already tired. It had been a tough day at work, but it wasn't over yet. Ever since the Tower of Maya's lead engineer quit (actually he got demoted, because he didn't have enough technical know-how for prepping the Tower's built-in fusion engines for space orbit), Valen had tasked her with finalizing the Tower of Maya's propulsion systems. Since her sister wasn't available to do the necessary modifications, she had to design and supervise the construction of practically everything by herself.
She recognized her sister's hand in the work, though. The first time she laid her eyes on the blueprints, there had been no doubt in her mind that Lucine was behind the building's mechatronic core system, if not exactly the peripherals. It had taken her over a week to even begin to make sense of the diagrams—the engineers before her had simply followed the blueprints without bothering with the mechanics, hence Valen's need to call her in (late) for the job.
Valen's trust in her was well-placed. Within a mere half-month, not only had she gotten everything back on track, but ahead of schedule to boot. As of that day, everything was already prepared for the building's launch to space orbit. All they were waiting for now was for Valen or Ruecian to give the word.
Belle was on her way to one of the laboratories—the last one to check and she would be done for the day. Her assistant was still documenting the day's progress. Belle saw that he was almost finished.
She noticed something odd on one of the console displays. The screen showed several guards carrying unmarked boxes into a neighboring upper-floor research lab. One of the boxes was of a different size from the others—it was almost room-high. "What is that?" Belle pointed.
"It's an unscheduled shipment, priority zero from the Undercity compound."
That's the same compound where Lucine and Claire are kept. She had a very odd feeling about the delivery. "What else do we know about that big one?"
He read aloud the first couple of data fields. "The logged information is similar to that of life capsules," he answered.
"No, it's too heavy to be a life capsule. Can you turn up any more information?"
"Sorry." Her assistant shook his head no. The data was protected.
Belle's jaw had a grim set to it. "Do an acute sensor focus."
A sensor focus of the same area where the sensor equipment was located would be considered highly unorthodox, and people would be bound to ask questions. Her assistant protested. "But, Ms. Brie…!"
"Just do it!" Belle snapped. "I'll take responsibility."
The scan results still showed it as a life capsule. Except that it couldn't be a life capsule, because it was completely filled with fluid. Belle silently read the sensor data as it displayed: Unknown liquid, density 2.37, salinity of 0.026 (seawater), viscous properties similar to kerosene at 20°Celsius blah blah chemical composition unidentifiable at present. Belle frowned. Odd, it shouldn't be that heavy. It's like the data contradicts itself. But the sensors couldn't be wrong—she routinely checked all of Valen's lab equipment herself.
A soft knock on the doorjamb. "Ms. Brie?" It was one of the guards. "Dr. Valen wishes to see you in his office."
She immediately sensed something amiss. If Valen wanted her, he could have simply called her over the intercom, or even on her cellular phone. Belle kept her face impassive. She fell into pace beside the guard, who silently led their way through the corridors.
"But I thought that the antidote was still in development?" Rue wanted to know.
Belle explained, "These vials are from the trial batches of eight years ago, which were the only ones that have been proven effective in chemical tests. I had them taken out of cryogenic storage. They haven't actually been used on living organisms, but they should be safe enough. I can't tell you more than that or Ruecian will have my neck." She sighed audibly. "Which reminds me, I have to go."
Rue asked, "Duke is coming to visit later—you aren't staying to see him?"
"I can't," Belle shook her head. Without further comment, she turned to leave. She almost bumped into Klaus at the door. She acknowledged the professor with a nod, but no words were exchanged between them.
"What was that all about?" Klaus asked the white-haired boy. He went to Elena first, and with his fingers gently brushed his daughter's hair.
"Hmm?" Elena groggily opened her eyes. "Papa, is that you? Good morning," she greeted as she smiled up at him.
"Elena!" Klaus was too stunned at first. And then, without warning, he gathered his daughter into his arms. Rue went towards them, glad that Elena was finally awake.
"Ow, Papa, you're squeezing me!" Klaus loosened his embrace, but he didn't put her down just yet. Elena looked around. "Good morning, Polly. Hey, why are we in the hospital?" She saw Mint sleeping on the other bed, and she remembered. "Oh… I got sick too, didn't I?"
Klaus nodded, finally putting her down. "You had us all worried, Elena."
"I'm fine now." Elena was as cheerful as ever.
"Belle came with the antidote," Rue told them. He walked back towards the other bed, his relief over Elena replaced once more by worry. "It doesn't seem to affect Mint, though. Professor, you think her magick…?"
"Remember that Mint's exposure to the chroma strain had been longer and a lot deeper than Elena's," Klaus said. "It will probably take a while for the antidote to have an effect on her. If I'm right, her magick will help, not hinder it. I'd better tell Mira the news," he excused himself to make a phone call.
Klaus returned after only a few minutes. Rue would leave for the Tower of Maya soon. He hoped to see Mint awaken by the time he had to go, but there was still no change in the red-haired girl's condition. Maybe it was just as well, Rue thought. He decided to wait until Mira arrived.
Mira came as soon as she could, and Prima tagged along, eager to see his big sister. He practically ran through the door and into Elena's arms.
"Big sissie all better! Mint's gonna get better soon, too! Hey, that's great, isn't it, Rue? That means you don't have to go back to Mr. Valen."
But Rue shook his head at the younger boy. "I gave him my word, Prima. Professor, Mira," he turned to Klaus and his wife, "I'll be going now." He put on his cap as he made to leave.
He felt a weak tug on his shirt, and he turned to see half-closed burgundy eyes gazing at him. "I will come to take you back. Do you hear me?" Her voice was feeble, and she was barely conscious, but her eyes shone with an inner brightness. "I will come for you. That's a promise."
"Mint…" Rue took her hand, carefully pulling her stiff fingers off of his shirt. He wanted to say something, but he saw that Mint had fallen asleep again. He gently laid her hand on the coverlets. He left quickly without once looking back.
"The way I see it," Valen had explained to the white-blonde woman, "the only way Maya could have gotten Atenacius's message undetected is if someone actually allowed it to pass through."
Belle shrugged and answered him, "You'd be surprised at how many holes we have in our security system." She was referring to Rue's recent break in, among others.
But Valen didn't believe her. Suffice to say that half an hour later, she found herself in the Tower of Maya's detention block in the basement.
Maya, you fool. I gave you that disc card to warn you, not to set you against Valen. I thought you would have had more sense than to confront him directly. Mint would never hav— she stopped the thought before it even began. Mint would never have been taken in by Valen and Ruecian in the first place. That was the main reason, in fact, why Ruecian had helped the younger sister to become crown princess instead…
Her meeting with Valen was yesterday. Belle had slept, deciding to tackle the situation when she had rested. She didn't know the hour when she woke, for time never seemed to pass normally in the deep halls of the many compounds of Aeon Industries. But she knew where she was, and she knew she had to get out.
Belle surveyed the room. Okay, air vents are out of the question. Guess I'll just have to pick the lock. In their modern day and age, most everything can be manipulated via computer, and there wasn't an electronic system in existence that Belle didn't have the ability to hack yet—another one of the reasons that Valen had found her services so useful.
She found nothing. Which meant that she was going to have to get fancy, if not exactly original. When the guard came to bring her meal, she pretended to be sick with stomachache. When he turned his back on her, she konked him.
She scowled. It was too easy—too bloody easy, even for her. Such was Valen's confidence that Belle could do nothing to stop his machinations that he didn't even bother to put her in one of the high-security detention blocks up top, like where the princess Maya was kept. It was actually a good thing, but strangely she couldn't help but feel insulted.
Belle had to admit though, that Valen had a point, and that there really was nothing she could do—nothing that she ever could have done anyway. She hadn't been able to stop him eight years ago. But she had been just an ordinary schoolgirl then, not a chemistry teacher in a small-town high school. A school that, incidentally, had ties to the one person on whose cooperation Valen had staked everything on—the one person whose defiance to the will of Aeon Industries could single-handedly bring Valen's self-built empire crashing to its knees.
For Valen was dying.
Try as he and Ruecian might, they couldn't hide that fact from everyone, especially not from Valen's skilled associates who had worked closely with him (and Belle was undoubtedly one of those). Even Atenacius had caught on to the façade quickly enough. And they all knew, that a dying man sometimes resorted to desperate contrivances. Especially now that the East Heaven spirit-healer refuses to help him.
Belle would give her that much, that Maya had some of her sister's spunk—too much of it, actually, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Mint had gotten in and out of worse scrapes, and Maya was still young. Spunk and inexperience could be a dangerous combination in the lethal sense, but the girl would be safe enough within Valen's detention cells. Maya would learn in time. She should come out of this fine.
Right now though, Belle was trying her best to come out of the situation fine as well. Or at least with only minor wounds.
Her disappearance would be discovered in a couple of hours at the latest, but it should be enough. Now that the Tower of Maya's construction was complete, Valen had just about run out of uses for her, and judging from his previous actions, he wouldn't care one whit about what she did so long as she didn't get in the way of his plans. She smirked. Yeah, right.
Before she made a run for it, there were a couple of things she needed first. The space orbit coordinates, and the location of the Undercity compound. The corridor was empty—merely reinforcing her opinion that Valen cared whit about what she could do to him—and she knew of a computer terminal a few floors up. Carefully, she made her way there. She inserted a blank disc card into the terminal and typed in a few commands. The data retrieval took longer than expected, and Belle tapped her foot impatiently.
Just as she pulled out the disc card, however, she heard the strained squeal of the modified fusion engines, and felt the familiar (albeit much stronger) vibrations of the building's built-in mechatronic systems through the soles of her boots. She gripped the sides of the computer terminal in alarm.
Blast it, they're launching early! Out, out, she had to get out, right bloody now!!
She keyed in the commands to unseal the doorway to the tunnels, and then she ran. She didn't care anymore on whether she showed up on any security cameras—the guards would be too busy with the launch anyway—but she knew the precautions and the instructions Valen had left the security team. Her chances of escape would drastically come close to nil if she remained in the building when the launch was over.
She managed to get out in time. She was halfway out the tunnel exit at the lake ruins when she saw the upper floors dislodge from the rest of the Tower and rise into the sky.
When Mint regained consciousness and was finally able to stand, she was angry to the point of being murderous.
"SEVEN DAYS?! I've been asleep for seven days?!!" She was practically seething. She didn't know at whom or at what she was angry, but right then and there she really felt like beating the pulp out of someone, anyone. She repeatedly cracked her knuckles in an effort to remain calm.
Mint and Elena were discharged without incident. Klaus drove them all home that very hour—neither Mint nor Mira would have stood for anything else. He updated Mint on what had happened the past week while she was asleep, with Elena and Prima unusually keeping silent during the half-hour drive.
Mira allowed Mint to take a shower first to refresh herself, and the girl took a change of clothes from her duffel that Mira had brought from the hospital. Klaus went directly to his basement, returning to his half-completed run of the programs Atenacius had sent him. The disc card was inserted in the slot of a newly-bought laptop, since Klaus's old one was stolen the previous month.
He had just finished running all the programs when he heard Mint come down the basement stairs. Mint wordlessly peered over Klaus's shoulder to study the diagrams on the laptop display, and Klaus couldn't help but note that it was Rue who usually did that.
"What's this, professor?" Mint asked. Ever since waking up, Klaus had noticed a slight change in Mint's voice whenever she spoke. As if the girl had suddenly, inexplicably, gotten older.
He answered her, "Atenacius sent me a disc card a couple of days ago. It contains the schematics of Valen's new machines, but aside from that, Atenacius was able to develop a special circuit simulation that factors in the effects of magick." Klaus ran the simulation again. Mint frowned involuntarily as she looked at the laptop screen.
She couldn't understand half of what was displaying, but what she did understand, she definitely had a bad feeling about. A very bad feeling—the same bad feeling she had around the life capsules. "It's a psyche-transplant device," Mint's eyes were glazed over, as she sensed more than actually recognized the significance of the diagrams. "It can effectively transfer one's mind into another body."
Klaus nodded an affirmative. "Everything from personality to thought patterns to memories. From the looks of it, not only is it permanent, but also one-way. The recipient's own psyche would be totally wiped out. The transferee's body, without a mind, would simply die."
The professor shook his head, thinking. "Valen needs a healthy chroma child to work the machines. He needs Rue for that. But something still bothers me," he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. "Remember that day when you fought at the lakeside to rescue Prima? They jammed an entire city's electronics simply to lure Rue to the Tower of Maya. All that trouble, and they could have captured him already then. Why did he let you go?"
Mint turned to the diagrams again, at the same time trying to remember what she could of her tutors' lectures about the nature of magick. Eventually, the reason dawned on her. "Because magick depends on will. Valen wants Rue to come to him of his own free will…"
"…otherwise the machines won't work." Klaus finished for her, both of them realizing the implications at the same time. The pieces were finally starting to fall into place. "If Rue resists him, Valen will not succeed in transferring his psyche into Rue's body." Mint cursed silently. Knowing Rue, he was bound to readily do anything his beloved father told him to.
Especially since Valen still had Claire with him. Mint had no proof, of course, only glaring suspicion. Lies or not, Mint had a very good idea on what Valen had told her friend to convince him to return to the Tower of Maya. She clenched her fists at her sides, her eyes narrowing involuntarily at the empty air. "Don't worry. Valen won't ever get to use those machines. I'm busting Rue out of there." She had no idea how she was going to manage that, but she was sure she would be able to come up with something. She had to. I promised I'd get him back, didn't I?
If only for once, she would keep a promise.
Author's Notes
17 April 2003. I'll be the first to admit that that was cliché to the nth power, so you should have seen it coming ^_^;; I apologize for the long update, and I made a few booboos again. Nothing major—just a couple of changed wordings and no changes in the story—it's just that I didn't want Valen to look too much like your stereotypical bad guy. This fic already has too many clichés worked in as it is. Plus, I think I actually made the story/backstory a bit too complex—augh, when I started this fic I thought I could do it, but with each new chapter I keep banging into more and more plotholes!
Just a reminder, and I'm morally obliged to say this: This fic is PG-13. Be warned. I realize that some readers are as young as ten or eleven, and second thoughts about reading further as well as parental consent are advised for the younger audience. There are a couple of scenes that will border the rated side, but I deem them necessary to the story, and as it is I've tried to keep such to a minimum. I'm pretty strict on censorship—probably a lot stricter than necessary.
Reviews are always appreciated, and they're often helpful. Special thanks to: GoddessOfTheBlueRose, The Crew of Light, James Birdsong, Maronne Cruz, Hyper-Yuffie, Tenshi Takai, Twisting Demon, Dr. Casey, sugarhighmonkey, and Yama goddess of fire. ^_^.
By the way, Twisting Demon and Tenshi Takai have graduated from high school this March. Congratulations!
Recently, someone informed me of this link:
http: / / www. petitiononline. com/ tof2/ petition. html
It's a petition to SquareSoft requesting them to create a a sequel to Threads of Fate (aka Dewprism). We are asking everyone who would wish to see ToF2 to kindly sign it.
This story is Long with a capital 'L', so let's not get our hopes up. Many thanks to everyone who hasn't given up on it yet—you may never realize how much your support has meant to me and to the continuance of this story. Chapters still to come (promise I won't insert any in-betweens anymore):
31 The Heart
of the Blade Star
32 Storming the Tower
22 Ruecian
34 Dual Haloes
35 The Arc Edge
36 The Conclusion of Their Second Year
37 Epilogue: Student of Carona High [Rue's third year]
38 Beyond the Game: The Final Loose Thread [First days at Ephlesia U.]
"When, when will the hurting stop?" Maybe you're wondering why there are so many more chapters to go, considering that the archenemy's plans are already laid bare. Let's just say that Adi is trying to clean up the mess she made of this story (while doing her damnedest to keep it interesting). Carona High's plot is fairly predictable, if you've paid close enough attention. Dang, I wish I was more creative. I need a better brain! *cries*